Executive Director of Monday Night Raw, Bruce Prichard, has told of why he believes Shane McMahon left the WWE in 2009.
At the time of McMahon’s departure from World Wrestling Entertainment, he was not only a prominent in-ring performer embedded in a bitter rivalry with Legacy members Randy Orton, Cody Rhodes and Ted DiBiase Jr., but also a member of the company’s hierarchy in the board room as WWE’s Executive Vice President of Global Media.
However, when the pressure of professional wrestling life became too much for the daredevil, he decided that he would do what no member of his family had done before – step away from the industry which his family were credited for building.
Now, Bruce Prichard has taken to his Something to Wrestle Podcast to give his short and frank opinion of why Shane left the company when he could have continued and had anything he wanted:
“Well, I think that Shane was looking at doing other things behind the scenes and devoting more time to that. The character needed a rest. It was a culmination of a lot of different things, but most importantly, he had other duties that he really wanted to focus on as well.”
Following the announcement of his departure, which took effect from January 1, 2010, ‘Shane O’Mac’ delved into other business ventures and plunged fifty million dollars into his YOU On Demand VOD streaming service in China.
However, in September 2020, McMahon joined the cast of WWE’s After the Bell to full detail his departure and his decision to walk away from the company that made him a star:
“It’s one of those things where you have, you can call it, ‘the cocoon’ if you will for your whole life. Again, having the most unbelievable education, [as] you were talking about earlier, sitting next to great minds such as Pat Patterson, guys like Michael Hayes etc. Having so many business people come through there for marketing and promotion and what have you and business development, consumer products you learn so much from everybody that’s come through those doors. I have, again, had such a fortunate education in multiple facets.
So it’s like I’ve had 15 different jobs over the tenure of my career, and you learn so much, whether I was working inside the company having to be all under one umbrella. So taking that knowledge, wanted to go outside for a little while. Also, it was very important for me and one of the one of the bigger driving factors was, I have three boys and make sure that I was their life a little bit. I wanted more time with them, and my leave allowed me to invest time, which is the most valuable commodity as you’re aware. Everything is so demanding, your time is so demanding. So I was I was able to coach all my son’s peewee football, until they got to high school.
Thoroughly being in their lives, just being around a whole lot. Seeing a lot of them was one of the driving forces for me doing so as well as immersing myself into businesses that I wanted to do and testing myself. How would I fair outside ‘the cocoon’ and do something completely different, you know, take those skill sets and get involved with multiple multiple businesses. Do some investing. Do some things like that that I’ve always had the affinity to do and go for it.”
Shane McMahon would make a shocking return to his family’s company on the February 22, 2016, edition of Monday Night Raw to oppose his father and sister’s tyrannical reign over the company while garnering one of the biggest reactions of the modern era of professional wrestling.
Currently, Shane McMahon has been missing from WWE television in an active on-screen role since October 2019 when he was fired for losing a Ladder Match to Kevin Owens. He did briefly re-appear in 2020 as the host of Raw Underground prior to the show’s dissolution.
Credit for the interviews: Something To Wrestle / WWE After The Bell
h/t for the transcriptions: Wrestling Inc.